Minutes of the St. Andrew Catholic School Council

Date:November 8, 2017

Time:6:30pm

Location:Library, St. Andrew Catholic School

In Attendance:Lorraine Boulos, Kelly Williams (VP), Emilia DeSimone, Nancy Harrison, Marion Bastiampillai, Elisabeth Michienzi, Christine Krueger, Susan English, Kelly Williams, Marguerite Murad Fuoco, Kendra Paiement, Louisa Oliveira, Simone Jez, Patricia Nadal-Droog, Mary Soler

Regrets:n/a

Greetings and Opening Prayer

Lorraine B. opened the meeting, by welcoming all, and led us in prayer. Kelly W (VP) also introduced us to members of the student council in attendance. Each student outlined their individual roles.

Approval of Agenda:

With a few additions, a motion was put forth by Elisabeth M.; second by Luisa O.; motion carried.

Approval of Minutes from Oct. 4th, 2017 Meeting:

The meeting minutes from Oct. 4th, 2017 were accepted as presented. A motion was put forth by Marion B., second by Christine K., motion carried. It was also discussed and unanimously agreed upon that going forward, the minutes could be approved via email prior to the following council meeting. A majority of approval will be required, and this change will allow minutes to be published on our school website without the delay of awaiting our subsequent council meeting.

Halloween Dance-a-thon

Emilia D. provided an overview of the results. We achieved our goal and raised $20,240, which is actually more money than last year per capita as we have 30 fewer students this year. She advised that with the inception of cash online for donations, the administrative workload leading up was greatly reduced. Our overall expenses were lower as we removed the grand prize, thus making more prizes available per division,giving each student a better chance of winning. Also we did not have the DJ expense as this year a teacher volunteered to take on this task.

Business Arising from our last Meeting:

a)Additional Lunch Options: Marguerite M. reported back on her research and advised that an option could be “Lunch Box Orders’ which serves as a ‘middle man’ to facilitate lunch programs for school. It does not require parent volunteers, it is paperless, it is compliant with the Ministries food & beverage policies, does not cost the school anything, and allows flexibility in terms of timing of ordering, food venues, menus, and days. It was decided that next steps will be for Lorraine B., Kelly W. (VP), and Kelly W. to meet with this company for more details and pursue the option of testing. Student council voted that if we were to test this option, we should start with Swiss Chalet, Subway and Pita pit. Also, it was discussed that a proper analysis will be required if we are to move forward.

b)Update on Strategic Plan: included as part of the Administrator’s report

c)Community Events/Parent Engagement: Decisions were reached regarding dates and activities reflecting the needs and interests of our community as follows:

  1. Jan. 25’18: 21st Century Digital Workshop & Numeracy Night
  2. Feb. 22’18: Tribal Vision-supported with funds received from our PRO Grant
  3. Mar. 22’18: Drumfit

d)Wishlist for Expenditures: included as part of the Administrators’ report

e)BBQ Review: Food, Games: May 21, 2018

  1. Kelly W. confirmed booking both BBQ Bros + Main Event
  2. Kelly W. to compile a list for January council meeting to review and make decision on which events or games to confirm with Main Event. We will also be looking for input from student council in making these decisions.

Review of Policy Regarding Adoption of a School Uniform Dress Code

Lorraine B. provided an outline of our school’s history regarding our last parent vote, which took place during the 2012-2013 school year. Given that 5 years have passed, and based on our HCDSB policies, we will need to conduct a vote this school year

Our family of schools superintendent, Toni Pinelli must be in attendance at our Parent Info night which has been scheduled for Feb. 12’18. The parent vote and decisions must be wrapped up by Mar. 30’18.

Under the guidelines, we must also form a Dress Code Policy Committee comprised of a student rep, it was suggested 1 of each gender, parent council reps as well as non council reps. Our parent council reps that stepped forward are Mary S., Luisa O., Christine K., Marion B., Simone J., Kelly W., as well as administrators Lorraine B. and Kelly W. (VP). In order to procure our non Council parent reps, a request for volunteers will be sent out during the weekly update.

A Dress Code Policy Committee meeting has been called for Mon. Dec. 11th @ 6:30 in the St. Andrew library.

Administrators’ Report/ Lorraine B. /Kelly W. (VP)-see Appendix A

Lorraine B. and Kelly W. explained attached in great detail. Going forward students are eligible to win the “Grit Award” exemplifying and outstanding effort to improve. 1 student per class will win this award each month

Financial Report

Emilia D. presented the planned expenditures and income. All members were in favour of the new expenditures included as part of the strategic plan wish list.

New Business for Future Meetings:

  • BBQ review
  • Dress Code Policy Committee update
  • Community Events/Parent Engagement review
  • Lunch Options

Closing Prayer

The closing prayer was led by Lorraine B. accompanied by the illustrated prayer card for “Do You Love Me”? The art was created by a student in our school board.

Adjournment

Since there was no further business the meeting was adjourned at 8:35 p.m.

Next meeting Date: Wednesday, January 17th, 2018

Location: Library, St. Andrew Catholic School

Item / Information / Follow Up or Next Steps
Catholicity /
  • Our first OCGE awards will take place on November 10th
  • Remembrance Day Celebration November 10th
  • Theological Theme – Do You Love Me?
  • We will be having weekly Advent Liturgies
  • We Scare Hunger Food Drive – we collected over 1600 items for local food banks
  • Nutrition room plaque
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  • Parents of students receiving OCGE medals will be alerted so that they can attend the assembly
  • Council members will each be provided with a prayer card
  • Should we get a plaque for the door of the nutrition room, and if so, could it say “Feed My Lambs” ~ in remembrance of Mr. Joe Luciani?

Curriculum / School Improvement Planning
  • Met with SIP team to review our SIP (it is a three year plan and was created last year); team feels there is a need to narrow the focus for this year with our targeted focus being on critical thinking in mathematics
  • We have weekly 21st Century digital workshops for staff
  • Students will be using their Office 365 accounts to access Suite of Tools
  • We are working on training at least one student per Jr/Int class to be our Office 365 Champions to help other students in the class; teachers from grade 4-8 will be given release time to be trained on Office 365 WITH a small group of their students
  • Turning Library into a Learning Commons – new librarian, Victoria Riddle, has set up a Twitter Account, is assisting with the building of a Makerspace, started Dungeon and Dragons Club
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  • We will update the one-pager for parent community and post to the school website
  • Need to purchase more devices ASAP
  • Need to create Lego wall, need to purchase Minecraft licenses, will begin coding and robotics

Home/ School Communication / Family Engagement Events
Pro-grant – Tribal Vision – we need to set a date for this Family Engagement Evening. Sherry Saevil has offered to provide a tribal elder, also, she will supplement funding
  • Other possibilities – Numeracy Night? 21st Century Night? Guest Speaker – on Raising Resilient Children? (Sherry Campbell)
  • Book Fair during Interviews
  • Interview process
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  • Need a parent committee to lead the engagement evening.

School Climate / School Climate survey was completed with the following results:
  • 26% of our Intermediate students and 32% of our Junior students report that they have been the victim of bullying in the last month. There is no gender difference between our Junior students, but our female Intermediate students report being victims of bullying more often than their male peers.
  • The most common types of bullying reported are verbal and social with it occurring most commonly during recess or outside of our school.
  • 41% of our Intermediate students and 81% of our Junior students report bullying incidents to their parents or guardians
  • Only 22% of our Intermediate students would report it to an adult at school while 64% would tell a peer at school
  • 86% of Junior students feel that there is an adult at school they can talk to about bullying, that there are safe ways to report it, and 78% feel teachers step in quickly
  • 54% of Intermediate students say that they make an effort to include victims of bullying when they see it occur, while 81% of Junior students report that they would comfort the victim of bullying.
  • 79% of our Intermediate students report feeling safe at school and 75% of our Junior students report feeling safe in school
  • Amongst our Intermediate students, immigrants who have been in Canada fewer than 5 years report higher rates of feeling excluded.
  • 22% of our Intermediate students report experiencing moderate or high levels of anxiety, this is higher than the Canadian norms.
Student Voice – Creation of Student Government
-Student Government is being established to allow students to contribute to our positive school climate in a variety of ways. The Student Government will have different branches that support our Safe School Action Team mandate of being a safe and inclusive school. The branches include: Student Ambassadors (social justice work), Student Council (liaisons for school initiatives and decision making), Student Voices of Hope (building hope, love and faith). /
  • Creation of SSAT
  • Creation of Bullying Prevention Plan (which will be posted on our School Website)
  • See the Problem/Be the Solution
  • Lorraine & Kelly will be meeting with Student Council members periodically to discuss school initiatives, share ideas and feedback, and make decisions that impact students; specific Student Council Ministers will be called upon as needed to over-see different school initiatives.

Safety / Lockdown and bomb drills –
Bullying Prevention Plan – has been posted on our school website, shared with teachers, teachers will be reviewing with students as age-appropriate /
  • Must have two bomb drills per school year and one Lockdown drill, these will be taking place – parents will be notified.

Fundraising /
  • Dance-a-thon –very successful, very positive feedback except for some complaints that it was too dark for FDK students
  • Grand total: $20, 240.05 (before expenses)
  • Many, many thanks to the numerous volunteers who helped to organize!
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  • Will have it brighter next year for younger students